Your Right to Know

Statistics provide an interesting, and at times conflicting, view of the state of our state.

It is strong, except where it is weak.

Job growth is both steady and sluggish.

Unemployment is down ... and up.

In other words, the state of our state is debatable — and not just because it’s an election year.

“We give Ohio the letter grade of B, and we think it will probably be a B-plus or an A-minus by the time we finish the year,” said Jim Russell, a senior vice president for U.S. Bank in Cincinnati.

An annual Dispatch review of some key economic indicators shows that the past three years have been among Ohio’s best job-growth periods in more than two decades. And yet 2013 was one of the state’s worst years for jobs and unemployment since the recovery from the Great Recession began.

The State of the State speech that Gov. John Kasich delivers on Monday night in Medina will show a decidedly different Ohio than the one being portrayed by likely Democratic gubernatorial challenger Ed FitzGerald, and the diverging sets of data are a reason.

During the past three years, Ohio has added 143,500 jobs, reduced the number of unemployed by 122,780 and trimmed a full 2 percentage points off its unemployment rate, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Weekly wages have gone up 10.1 percent for Ohioans, compared with a U.S. average of 6.6 percent. And the state’s housing market has experienced year-over-year growth every month for a record 30 consecutive months, according to the Ohio Association of Realtors.

But in 2013, Ohio’s unemployment rate rose from 6.7 percent to 7.2 percent — higher than the national rate of 6.6 percent and the highest year-to-year increase in the U.S. Nearly 31,000 people were added to the unemployment rolls.

Ohio added 25,600 jobs for the year — 22nd-most in the country — but Ohio is the seventh-largest state. When job growth is measured as a percentage of the state’s workforce, Ohio ranked 45th in 2013.

Weekly wages might be up in Ohio, but at $769.35, the Ohio average wage is still $58.21 below the national average.

“Increases in average wages directly translate into increases in the quality of life for the people earning those wages,” said Edward “Ned” Hill, a conservative Cleveland State University economist. “But can you declare hosanna victory, the economic challenges in the state of Ohio are over with? No.”

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Lee McPheters is an economics professor and director of research at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business — the entity responsible for the ranking that shows Ohio was 45th in the U.S. in job growth last year.

The Carey school’s formula is simple: Take the number of jobs added in a year and divide by the number of workers the state had when the year began.

McPheters said looking at job growth based on percentages is a better way to determine how one state is performing compared with its peers, but he also said that it can be harder for a larger state such as Ohio to climb in those rankings.

With 5.2 million people working, a population of more than 11 million and an economic portfolio that is still heavily reliant on manufacturing, McPheters said, “to show a growth rate of 2 or 3 percent, you really need there to be a boom.”

“Ohio really has to kind of compare itself to the national average rather than to these 4 and 5 percent growth states,” said McPheters, noting that North Dakota experienced the largest growth rate in the U.S. — 4 percent — largely because of its oil-and-gas drilling boom.

The national average rate of growth last year was 1.6 percent. Ohio’s growth rate was 0.48 percent.

“With 5 million people working, 26,000 new jobs is certainly a very good number, but it represents only one-half of 1 percent growth,” McPheters said. “In comparison, Ohio is growing so much slower than the nation as a whole.”

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Ohio usually grows more slowly than the country. In fact, since the Carey school began tracking state-by-state job growth by percentage in 1991, Ohio’s highest ranking was 17th in 2011. The state’s average ranking is 38th. Only three times did Ohio outpace the U.S. in job growth during that time, most recently in 2010.

Russell, the U.S. Bank vice president who gives Ohio a B grade with an upward projection, said the state stands to gain from its heavy reliance on manufacturing as more big companies look to bring their overseas operations back to the U.S. Last year, Ohio added 4,900 manufacturing jobs and set a state record with $50.5 billion in exports.

The state added 1,300 auto-related jobs in 2013.

“I do think this will be another good year for Detroit, and I’m very cognizant of the relationships, especially in northern Ohio, with Detroit,” Russell said.

The state also added about 8,800 jobs related to oil-and-gas fracking during the past three years — mostly in far eastern Ohio and well below some early estimates. Russell expects the number of those jobs to increase.

Hill, at Cleveland State, said there was “irrational exuberance over the shale play in the eastern part of the state,” but he thinks Ohio’s direction is improving because of a reliance on traditional industry and an attempt to diversify.

A record 89,735 new-business filings were recorded last year with Ohio’s secretary of state.

“I’m seeing very good rebound in the manufacturing sector of the state, which is important,” Hill said, “and I am beginning to see some investments across the state, which is important”

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Kasich is expected to address poverty in his speech on Monday night, and experts say poverty in Ohio isn’t getting better.

Nearly half of Ohio’s schoolchildren receive government-subsidized lunches this year, virtually unchanged over the past four years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, the family poverty rate for Ohio held steady at 12 percent in 2011 and 2012 — the most recent data available.

More poor people are gaining access to health care through the continuing expansion of Ohio’s Medicaid program, which Kasich promoted, but thousands fewer are receiving cash assistance.

“Certainly the economy is still rough for a lot of low-income people in the state,” said John Honeck, director of public policy for the Center for Community Solutions in Columbus. “We don’t have enough jobs, and given that situation, we think there needs to be more investment in public programs to help (the poor) sustain a decent living and in the long run lift them out of poverty.

“I am very hopeful that the governor will have some major announcements in the workforce-development arena — either some new resources or better alignment in the programs to help people get the skills they need to move up in the workforce.”